I couldn't be more excited to participate in Coursera's E-Learning and Digital Cultures course, the first block of which delves into how digital cultures and digital education can be described as utopian or dystopian.
Assignment one involves a short film and our thoughts on how technology is portrayed in it. Check out the animated film below and think about what the message means to you.
To me, the animated short, Bendito Machine III's message about technology and our interaction with it was two-fold for me.
In one vein, the film seemed to portray the idea that technology and our evolving fascination with it can both help and hinder our humanity and the way in which we interact with the world and each other. In many ways, we do benefit from the various types of information that technology (in this case specifically, the medium of television) can offer us. Technology can be used as a means to gather socially (i.e., watching sports, bonding time), and can bring some enjoyment to our lives as we access information that without technology is not readily available to us whether for geographic or socioeconomic reasons. On the other hand, we can be affected adversely in the way some information (news, propaganda, advertising) is relayed--reshaping societal values, causing panic, biases, or even general desensitization.
Bendito Machine III portrays technology as having the capability to affect us both positively and negatively, but the film also speaks to technology being a fad that we as humans have the intrinsic tendency to seek after. As a global community of avid consumers who focus more on trends and disposability rather than on sustainability and environmental and economic responsibility, the next best thing out is a must-have--everything before it is out-dated and useless. This couldn't be more true in today's world than it is for technology.
